


The Delusions of a Deadman (A lifetime in the blink of an eye)

by Soldier24



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, The death is not permanent, alternative universe, only the dead know, what happens when we die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:48:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27414508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soldier24/pseuds/Soldier24
Summary: Jack welcomed death when it came. Longed for it in a way most men longed for love.But he didn't know what came after, expected only hell. Instead, he's confronted with a reality so far removed from his own that it can only be a delusion. A dying brain's last attempts at comfort.A selfish man at heart, Jack embraces the delusion.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, I am a garbage person. Here is a story. I hope to update it regularly.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knows. He knows what death is.

He takes a breath. And another.

The ghost of a man he knew dropping to his knees and the mask falling aside. Jack smiles despite himself and can taste the blood on his teeth even before he coughs more of it out. Stains his face as he reached up and pulls up what's left of his visor. Blinds himself even as his body is dragged onto Reaper's lap.

"Hey," He rasps and cups his face blindly, follows the old familiar lines and smiles despite the blood, the pain. The darkness of his vision dims into a new black at the edges and he knows. Knows. "I'll miss you." He whispers and lets go.

One last breath.


	2. To Build A Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He expects the darkness of not having his visor, no red tinged vision to color the world until Winston slaps it down on a table and reminds him that the tech isn't easily replaceable. That sooner or later, he's nothing but an old man that needs to be done.
> 
> But Jack just goes on waking slowly and opens his eyes to a room full of soft sunlight. Hears the song of birds outside through an open window. Feels a breeze carry in the scent of early fall and he breathes. Hopelessly alive. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from The Cinematic Orchestra's song of the same name.

He breathes. Takes a breath and another. Wakes slow in a way he hasn't been able to in years.

Expects aches and the beeping of machines. The hospital stench that sticks to inside of his nose and gives him headaches for days even after Angie discharges him.

He expects the darkness of not having his visor, no red tinged vision to color the world until Winston slaps it down on a table and reminds him that the tech isn't easily replaceable. That sooner or later, he's nothing but an old man that needs to be done.

But Jack just goes on waking slowly and opens his eyes to a room full of soft sunlight. Hears the song of birds outside through an open window. Feels a breeze carry in the scent of early fall and he breathes. Hopelessly alive. 

The room isn't immediately familiar. Likely a dream or hallucination as his body shuts down from the brutal one, two, three of being punched by Doomfist of all the motherfuckers before being hit by the full force of Reaper's Death Blossom.

Whatever the case, Jack decides to enjoy it. Curls up a little more in the warmth blankets and hums a soft song to himself. An old forgotten lullaby. 

"Already awake?" The voice punches a hole through his heart, the warm hands climbing up his back and around his waist nearly make him stroke out right there and then. 

A fucking delusion then, he thinks and doesn't dare turn around as a warm body presses closer and curls around him like it belongs there. He clasps a hand over the one that's comes to rest over his heart, hearing the soft clip of the rings hitting against one another and nearly dies all over again. 

"Thought you were sleeping in, _cariño_ , after all the trouble the brats gave you yesterday." Gabriel's voice murmured into his ear and he has to squeeze his eyes shut. Focus on anything other than the pounding of his heart, the long warm line of his body pressed to his like they were made to match. And they were made to match. Just not like this. "Jackie? You okay? Heart's going a mile a minute."

"I'm-" He chokes on the words, laughs as he turns his face into the pillow as he tries to catch his breath. "I'm good, Gabe, just had a nightmare."

"Shit, what was it? The movie set you off?" He asked with clear concern in his voice, pulled Jack more firmly against him despite the closeness of their body. "I swear I'll rip that ingrate a new one."

"McCree's not at fault here." Jack assured him and forced himself to calmness. Breathed in and out, steady. Like they were back at SEP and not in a delusion of his own making, caught in the unfulfilled wants of his own heartbreak. 

".....baby, you sure you're okay? You haven't called Jesse, McCree in years." He felt Gabriel shift to loom over him and breathed in again before forcing himself to look. 

Gabriel was resplendent in his youth. A man made godly by warm eyes and a soft mouth, the sternness of his brow matched by the slope of his nose, the shape of his jaw. Jack had loved him at first sight and only fell deeper with each passing decade. There was not an ounce of gray in his hair, but a few scars were still firmly in place. A man of war and very infrequently of peace. He reached up, tracing over his face, over the familiar shape of his mouth and scars, which Jack had spent years memorizing across tables and battlefields before his eyes had been taken from him. 

Zurich. And the years that stretched into a decade that followed. His own personal hell. 

This had to be heaven. But Jack had done so little to deserve it in his first life and done even less in his second.

"Jackie, you're starting to scare me here." Gabriel whispered, turning to press a firm kiss to the center of his palm. 

"I love you, Gabriel Reyes." Jack confessed with all the fervor he could muster.

Gabriel's eyes narrowed at him for a moment as if judging, "If you're going to be a suck up to get out of laundry, you should at least do it right." He leaned in and swept Jack into a very unexpected kiss. All tongue and teeth as the weight of Gabriel pressed him down into the mattress. His heart ached in a new sort of way even as Gabe pulled back and nipped a his lip. "Reyes-Morrison, asshat." 

And Jack laughed, sharp and uncertain. Heart fluttering again as he kissed him back. "Yeah, yeah, smartass. Get off me." He gave a little shove.

"Oh, what? Am I too heavy for you?" Gabriel teased and flopped his full weight down because he was a contrary little shit at the best of times and a stubborn son of a bitch at the worst. 

"Motherfucker." Jack wheezed as he tried to escape, giving up a beat later cause he was dying and he deserved to lay in fucking bed, goddammit. Gabriel laughed a beat later and kiss him once again. 

"I'll get breakfast started, cause I love you." Gabriel teased as he rolled off him and padded to a dresser in just a pair of boxer briefs. It did things to Jack who huffed in the bed. "And cause I know you're good for it." He looked over his shoulder with a wink before pulling on a black shirt.

"Good for what?" Jack snorted and launched a pillow at his head, finding it easy to slip into their early years. SEP before the shit hit the fan and they burned as they fell apart. 

"A blowjob while the kids are at fucking Ana's. Or a handie. Anything really." Gabriel pulled on a pair of dark sweats with a hop. "You're kinda easy Jack."

"We're married." Jack shot back, glaring as he held up his hand as evidence. "Ain't I suppose to be easy?"

Gabriel laughed brightly as he walked over and kissed him tenderly, "Babe, we both know you were easy long before I slapped a ring on it."

He lashed out and hit him in the gut, the bastard before turning over into the warm spot Gabriel had left in the bed as the other man grunted, laughed and left the room. 

It was then that it fucking clicked and Jack shot up into a sitting position. Kids?

Kids??!? Whose fucking kids did they fucking have. Cause as far as Jack was aware they lacked the prerequisite fucking organs needed for the old fashioned way. He got to his feet, heading to the dresser mirror and sucked in a breath at his own reflection. 

Late 20s, early 30s. Maybe older if he ain't stress aged, but it was a delusion. It was a delusion and he'd expected Gabriel. Expected the warmth of their bed. The whisper of a kiss. But not... kids.. Not more time than it took an old man to die. He reached out to the glass, to the image of golden boy he'd grown to hate and had been happy to leave behind as he'd aged. (Vain as he was about his hairline, he'd liked he silver.)

"Ma?" The voice startled him and he jumped as he turned toward the bedroom door only to find a far too young Jesse McCree standing there in cowboy themed pajamas.

"Oh." Jack replied and thought, kids. Thought ours. And breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cariño - darling is the closest approximation.
> 
> I will say now my translations will probably be what the intention is and not the word for word translation cause it rarely works out word for word like that in my experience, but @ me if you have questions.


	3. A Blip at Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heaven is the dream of a life he can never have with a man that never loved him. 
> 
> Heaven is the space between his body's death and his brain's decline.
> 
> On the other side of heaven, is the hell where he must pay for his sins.
> 
> But for now, there's heaven and the unexpected.

At the breakfast table, he's joined by what has to be a ten year old or so Jesse McCree (still in the fucking cowboy pajamas with a stuffed fucking horse that looks beat to shit) and a young girl with sharp eyes and an obsession with purple. Her pajamas are purple (with little pink and blue skulls that don't fucking make sense for a little girl her age), her fuzzy slippers are purple, her nails are tipped in carefully done purple polish, and her stuffed animal (a fucking blob that he can't make out) is also purple. Purple is her theme and her standard, apparent from the look on her face, she finds the whole world wanting in comparison.

With that expression, she bore an uncanny resemblance to the woman that accompanied Reaper and Widow on their regular mission. That vanished in a blink of an eye with a combination of Tracer's tech and her own mischievous makings. That laughed too brightly for a battlefield and called out 'Gabe!' from across payload and capture points.

That had looked nothing short of emotionally wrecked when Jack hit the ground in a bloody ruin, visor and biotic emitters hacked from the EMP that had torn through their team's shield right before Reaper's voice echoed out 'Die, die, die.' As if she'd realized before Jack had, before any of them had that it was too little, too late. For all the poking and prodding she'd done to the team, the well placed hacks, the damage that forced Hanzo from his favorite perches... She'd never taken a life. 

Or maybe that was Jack's hopeful thinking. Jack's own miserable hopes carrying across to another one of Gabriel's children. That his daughter would not be inevitably ruined in the same fashion as his son. (The ruin that Jack himself had brought upon them.)

Here, she was just a shrewd little girl whose name couldn't be Sombra and who was eyeing Jesse like she was planning something. And Jack felt helpless to do or say anything with Gabriel at the stove frying eggs or something that smelled heavenly. He swallowed yet again and tried to steady himself. A delusion, he reminded him, a longing. 

A yearning as old as time. 

But Jack reached out without fully realizing it, had his hand sliding through her hair before he realized what he was doing. Didn't pause as he tugged on the end of it playfully. Muscle memory. Just like the cheeky, "Traviesa" that followed. She gave him a cheeky gap filled grin in response and he softened, easy as pie. 

It was no wonder they'd taken her in if her grin was so much like Gabriel's. The right amount of risky and recklessly. Like she was one bad idea away from doing something amazing that would drive him mad and wild in equal parts. He wondered if she laughed like him, with the same wild abandon and outright joy. (Privately he thought that Sombra did. Had heard her as she cackled her way through a hack, poking at their healers before shimmering away like magic.)

"Buenos dias mami," She said cheerfully and he groaned playfully, learning from his earlier interaction with Jesse that he was as likely to get called dad as he was mom, even if it was both English and Spanish for one and not the other. Mom had probably started as in joke and now Jack was stuck with it. He found that he really didn't mind it nearly as much as he should have. He didn't mind any of this, not really. (A delusion, he reminded himself firmly. Can't mind what isn't real.)

"You're killing me smalls." Jack complained and she giggled widely, wiggling in her seat like she'd been tickled.

"Don't even think about it, Jesse." Gabriel called out, side eyeing their son. (Their son. Jesus Christ.)

"I wasn't doing nothin'." Jesse complained but pulled his hands toward himself far too quickly to be true. Jack couldn't help but laugh, bright and blusterous before reaching out to ruffle his kid's hair. 

"Sure you weren't kiddo." He replied and both kids seemed to beam at him, then at Gabriel. As if everything right in there world could be tracked back to two old men, who in his reality couldn't get their shit together long enough to give a damn about anything other than revenge. Revenge and pride.

"Enough of that." Gabriel exclaimed as he set a pan in the center of the table, the eggs he'd smelled were part of chilaquiles. Just delicious fried tortilla chips with eggs slathered in a red sauce. Jack could almost taste his future regret, but couldn't be brought to give a damn as Gabriel covered them with cheese. 

"I'm going to get such bad acid reflux," Jack mourned as he served the girl, then Jesse, and then himself. Gabe rolled his eyes as he took his seat and dished up his own plate.

"I went easy on the spices for you, white boy." He grinned and leaned over. Jack's heart stuttered to a stop as Gabriel's lips pressed to his. "Your stomach will survive."

"Shouldn't you have built up tolerance by now?" Jesse chimed, "Even Rein can eat spices now and Tia Ana's food can be just as spicy when she wants!" Ah, Ana and Rein. Jack smiled down at his food for a moment before shaking his head. This really was something like heaven, wasn't it?

"Trust me, Jesse." Gabriel waggled his brows, "This is him having tolerance, your mama here use to think that black pepper was spicy."

"It's a spice! It's spicy!" Jack cut in, flushing as he did. "It's not my fault, I'm from fu-freaking Indiana!"

"Ooooh, mami nearly said fuck." The girl cut in and smiled innocently when both Jack and Gabriel gave her a look.

"Watch that mouth, traviesa or we'll be washing it out with soap." Gabriel warned as he pointed his fork at her. "I'm watching you."

"We're not washing her mouth out with soap, Gabriel." Jack said as he scrunched up his nose, nearly missing the girl's sarcastic, "Ooh, I'm so scared." Gabe leaned into him, side eyeing Jack as he did.

"Yeah, but don't tell Olivia that." He stage whispered, sending the girl and Jesse both into a fit of whispers. Olivia. It was... It wasn't as fitting. "She's already got too much power, don't you little shadow?"

"Yep," She grinned and looked to Jack expectingly, Jack returned her smile with a little shake of his head. She frowned at him after a beat, then looked down to her plate. Another beat and she was eating again, slower this time. Then there was a weird soft of lull and the three of them seemed to look to him all with looks of varying amount of concern. As if he'd misstepped, as if he'd forgotten some cue. Jack averted his eyes, ignoring the odd looks as he dug into the food instead. It was heaven, right? No chance he'd be able to fuck this up as well as he'd done with his real life. Right?

He finished eating and stood up with his plate in hand. And this time Jesse let out a little gasp, but Jack was already in motion. Charging through what common sense said to do in his panic. He set the dishes in the sink and he started to wash without a word. The motions, the burning hot water were soothing, a bit of reality that he could cling to as his body died, brain just a half step behind.

He could feel Gabriel's eyes on him even before the other man spoke. "Alright, if you brats are done eating, clean up your dishes and go change." He heard him order.

"Change?" Jesse chimed in, the chair he was sitting in rasping against the floor as he pushed it out. 

"We're going to Tia Ana's." Gabriel said decisively, "At least you brats are. I'm sure Fareeha is just dying to play with you brats."

"Gross." Jesse said but was at the sink faster than Jack could react, leaving his dishes on the side with a quiet thank you. Olivia, the girl that would be Sombra, followed his lead, stacking the plates but she paused before him, just in the corner of his vision.

"Are you angry again, daddy?" She asked softly, so so softly and Jack's heart just broke all over again. It wasn't- this wasn't suppose to be like this. This wasn't...

"Baby, I'm not angry." Jack dried his hand down best he could and ran it over the top of her head, brushing back her messy hair. "Just a little sleepy, makes my brain funny." She eyed him like she was seeing through him straight to his soul before nodding in acceptance and rushing up the stairs with Jesse on her heels.

Gabriel was the last to stand and walk over, he set his plates with the kids' before shifting to Jack's other side and drying the plates as Jack finished washing them. They were silent. Both waiting, it seemed, for what? Jack didn't fucking know. Couldn't begin to imagine. It was just a little moment, a single slip and now-

"I appreciate you sticking to your word and not bringing up our fights around them." And that cut through him, Jack breathed as he shut his eyes, that cut him down. "Jackie, I know that you don't trust me but I promise-"

"Of course I trust you." Jack scoffed, blinking away tears that weren't for this time and place. For this Gabriel Reyes who still have kind smile and kind hands. Who could look at him with anything other than hatred and anguish. "Gabriel," He looked over and then away again, up as he blinked rapidly. "Fuck." He fanned his eyes for a beat. 

"What the hell, Jack." Gabriel reached out, shutting off the water. "Are you trying to cook your white boy skin off?" He hissed, "Look at your hands, you're redder than a lobster."

"Gabriel," Jack sighed but let the other man looked over his hands. "It's just the water."

"Right. Just third degree burns." Gabriel groused and just kept Jack's hands in his own, thumbing at the pinkness of his skin. With a little more awe than was truly necessary, he whispered softly, "You trust me?"

"With my life." Jack replied with ease, because once- once pride had destroyed him. Destroyed everything around him, everything worth having. His pride and Gabriel's wrath had burned everything they'd built, they'd made and brought it all down on their heads. Zurich. (The thought was bitter and black.) "Gabriel, I trust you with my life and more, but sometimes I think you don't value either very much." They were words for another life, for another Gabriel. But Jack was joining the dead very soon and his Gabriel would never stand to hear them. "And even if you did, my biggest problem with you has always been how little you fucking value your own." He met Gabriel's gaze, eyes hard. "Do you get that Reyes? I fucking hate how little you value your own. How little you think I value yours." He shook his head and turned back to the sink, starting the water on again and plunging his hands back under the spray of hot water as he scrubbed.

A beat. Another. A hand swept up his back before two arms wrapped around his waist. "I just need you to trust me, Jackie." Gabriel breathed out against his shoulder, kissing behind his ear. "I'm not doing anything that'll put you or the kids in danger. And I'm not cheating on you either. It's nothing like that." He murmured. "Just trust me." 

"I do," Jack whispered quietly and hoped that for once, he would be enough. That his trust would be enough.

It was nothing. A blip. A conversation he needed to have so his brain had just manufactured what he needed in order to get the closure he'd never get in life, had never gotten. The opportunity to look Gabriel Reyes in the eyes one last time and mean it as he said, "With my life, Gabriel. With all my heart." And this version of the man he loved merely leaned forward and kissed him like he meant it. Like he wanted it just as much. As if Jack was some precious, cherished thing to be loved. And Jack?

Jack let the dream carry him away. Easy as pie.


	4. But I'm Weak (And what's wrong with that?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Though it wasn't that Gabriel hadn't loved him once. Just that the love had been the brotherly sort, the kind that a man had for someone whose life he'd saved and who had his life saved by. Brothers in arms.)

Something in him rattles loose after their conversation in the kitchen. The pieces of his broken heart slipping from their places without the tempered rage to hold them, without the pride that propped them into place all these years. 

Something in him shakes loose and Jack doesn't even try to fight it. Just floats from the kitchen to the bedroom when Gabriel releases him in favor of a shower. Can feels every inch of contact they shared with an odd sort of sharpness. A heightened sensitivity to the places where Gabriel's warm chest pressed against his back, hips against his ass unashamedly, and his arms wrapped around him.

He's reminded again, as he slips back under the covers, that this Jack is beloved. That in this make believe world, Gabriel loves him because it's his heart's desire. (And reality had always, always been much crueler.)

(Though it wasn't that Gabriel hadn't loved him once. Just that the love had been the brotherly sort, the kind that a man had for someone whose life he'd saved and who had his life saved by. Brothers in arms.)

(Until Jack had ruined it.)

(Vitriol and hatred, he reminds himself and curls himself into smaller on the bed, is all that his Reyes had left for him.)

He shuts his eyes and waits for death to take him. For the Reaper to collect his due. 

Delusions. And Jack is too old for it. For the what if daydreams that he'd entertain in his youth, during SEP, during the Crisis, at the start of Overwatch. Almost right up until Zurich. Until Gabriel made it clear that there was nothing worth redeeming in the bloody handed, sweet talking politician he'd become. He's too old for the what ifs and he's entertained his dying brain enough, Jack wants peace has been rushing towards his death for the last decade. He wants peace and relief and-

"Oh baby," He hears, startles as the bed dips when Gabriel settles himself onto the bed beside the ball he's made himself into. "You weren't exaggerating about your nightmare, were you?" A moment later, Jack feels a hand brushing through his hair. Carding through the still blonde strands before resting on his forehead. "Probably underselling it if anything."

He breathes then realizes that Gabriel is probably waiting for a response. For something from him. He sighs softly, eye popping open. Enjoying the sight of his warm eyes, and a loving expression more than he should. More than he's ever been entitled to. "Just tired." Jack manages in a whisper after a long moment, "Exhausted." In a bone deep way that this Gabriel would never understand. The hand returns, running through his blonde hair once more as his eyes shuts. A soft kiss pressed against his brow a moment later, followed by a kiss to his brow.

"Hey, Jackie." Gabriel murmured sweetly, pressing another kiss and another to his skin, one over each of his eyelids. Jack felt the tension melt from his body despite himself, moved closer to the edge, to Gabriel. Forever chasing him. He heard Gabriel chuckle against his ear this time, "I'm going to go change and text Ana. I'll get the kids situated with her and then we can just lay in bed all day, how's that sound?"

"No, no." Jack said softly, shaking his head as he moved to sit up. "Gabe, no. You should go. Spend time with Ana and Rein." He could stay here. Alone as he was in his first death, his real death. He could say goodbye to his dreamscape without Gabriel holding him close. Without pretending that Gabriel, any version of him, could love a man as broken as Jack. 

"Fuck that, baby." Gabriel scoffed as he pulled Jack in, wrapping his arms around him. And Jack was weak, a weak willed man and for the life of him, he couldn't figure out why that was a bad thing. What was wrong with being that weak? "I'm not leaving you to have a bad day on your own. We take care of each other."

Jack couldn't argue against that. Or didn't want to. He huffed as he leaned into the embrace and nodded. "But the kids-" He said weakly, just putting up the bare minimum of a argument.

"The kids will be over the moon to hang out with Fareeha and Rein. A little less about Ana, but you know she always softens up around Rein." Gabe cut in, kissing the top of his hair. "Gimme twenty minutes and I'll drive him and I'll back. Maybe with snacks."

Jack laughed brightly for a beat, pressing his face into Gabriel's neck. "You just wanna eat your Doritos without the kids beating you to it."

"Maybe," Gabe smiled against his skin, kissed him as he pulled away. "Here, Jackie, let me tuck you in."

"What am I a child?" Jack snorted but let himself be manhandled into position, let Gabriel tuck the blankets in around him like he was one of their kids. Gabriel chuckled.

"Hey Jack. What's worse than a rapist?" Gabriel whispered and Jack groaned, turning to hide his face. 

"No. No. Gabriel, no."

"A child." Gabriel cackled as he moved out of reach of Jack swatting hands and ducked under the pillow he launched in his direction. He slipped out of the room, leaving Jack in a more light hearted mood than where he started. He smiled to himself, eyes shutting. Just for a moment.

Just for a moment's rest. 


	5. Interlude: A Dead Man's Dying Wish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All Jack Morrison has needed to survive is half a chance and dumb luck.
> 
> He was born with one. 
> 
> Gabriel has always been the one to make the other.
> 
> How little dying changes things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm not sure if anyone has stuck around but many apologies. Finals are the fucking worst. 
> 
> Not technically a story chapter, but an interlude of sorts.

"He signed a DNR." Ana stated firmly, shoving a file toward him that Reaper had no interest in reading. "He signed a DNR, Gabri-"

"Do not call me by that name." Reaper hissed back, all ruin and anger. She stared at him unimpressed by his theatrics. She had never been one to humor his dramatics. Had always patted his head like he was a toddler having a tantrum and told him to suck it up. Yet when it mattered Ana had always been their rock, their line of support against a world pitted against them. Two dumb hick Americans who were dumb enough to first enlist and then to let the US government pump poison through them. To make them something more then mortal for a brief, quick burning moment.

He knew better than Jack how quick that moment was and yet now none of that mattered. The past was washed away with the reality of a surgery going further and further south with every passing moment. 

And Reaper was not suppose to care. Was not a man but a ghost. Was not a ghost but a demon. Out for revenge and little more.

This was the story he'd written for himself. The narrative that kept his pieces together, that tangled himself up in a storm of dying flesh and nanites. A soul contained in breath of smoke that made up a man, no not a man, a monster.

She flicked his forehead and he startled, shoving the mask back into place as she sighed aloud. 

"He signed a DNR, Gabriel and we are going to respect it." She explained again, grabbing his shoulders like a decade of misery didn't separate them from the last time this happened. From the last time Jack Dumbass Morrison had charged into the line of fire, into the face of danger, rushing forward and forward into the inevitable death he sought with more fervency than a fucking lemming throwing itself off a cliff.

And he'd delivered him to it. Sick and aching, Reaper had raised the guns that had done this. And instead of the relief he'd expected, he only felt sick. Had dropped to his knees and pulled him in close. Because the narrative he told himself was built upon the lie that Jack Morrison had died at Zurich. 

With Jack Morrison dead, Gabriel Reyes had to hate him. Had to despise him. Had to. Or he'd follow him to the grave and he sure as shit wasn't going to go without revenge. Without vengeance for all they'd lost. (After the war.)

"I don't give a fuck what he signed. That man has been charging into shit and straight into the arms of death for the better half of his life and he can go fuck himself if he thinks I'm-"He snarled, the edges of himself starting to smoke as he stood just a little taller, looming.

"You did this." And she cut him down. Back to size. "You did this Gabriel. You wanted him dead. You wanted us dead. McCree. Genji. All of us. Dead. It is what you sought in your quest for revenge, is it not? Does his death not satisfy you? Is that not why you followed us back to Gibraltar? To finish the job? It is finished. He signed a DNR. Stop haunting his doorstep. Jack Morrison is as good as dead."

He slammed a fist into the wall and the wall gave, the force of his hit denting the metal. He breathed without really needing to, losing his shape. Becoming more of a ghost, a demon, a wraith. The Reaper. 

But it wasn't the Reaper that was needed here. No. 

"Don't spouses get some sort of say in that shit?" He asked finally, eyeing her expression through the mask. At the surprise, he pushed forward. "Vegas. Dumb bastard probably doesn't remember shit. nearly drunk himself into an early grave."

She eyed him skeptically for a moment before sighing. No, Ana never gave into his dramatics unless it suited her own. "I will speak to Winston. He will want a paper trail. Documentation. Something that says you are named his medical proxy in all matters."

"I'll have Sombra drop it off." He spoke truthfully, just omitted the part where he was going to have her mock it up and back date it to start with. 

"Gabriel." She repeated, holding his gaze. "It may not be enough."

"All Jack Morrison has ever needed to survive was half a chance and dumb luck." Gabriel replied and looked away, "He has one those, I'll make the other." 


End file.
